Monk, Architect, Diplomat

In 2005, the leaders of Social Venture Network (SVN), a
group of social entrepreneurs, asked me to research why members
had difficulty scaling social enterprises up from founder-led to second
generation-led organizations. Instead of scaling, why did they
almost always sell their companies to larger enterprises? We all
believed that a lack of finances was the primary culprit.

From a group of 400 social entrepreneurs, SVN executive director
Deb Nelson and I selected 75 members for me to interview. It
was a diverse group of entrepreneurs: 66 percent had founded a forprofit
and 40 percent had founded a nonprofit; 60 percent were
male and 40 percent were female; and 89 percent were white and 11
percent were racial minorities. All of them had experienced the
challenge of scaling.

Surprisingly, our research of best practices and common obstacles
revealed that scaling challenges rarely rose from financial limitations,
but were generally due to a lack of leadership skills. To
successfully scale up, these entrepreneurs needed to think differently
and lead differently from their peers. They had to understand
that social entrepreneurship is not just a form of entrepreneurship
but rather an instrument for social change. They needed to define
their businesses less in terms of products or services and more as
vehicles for personal, organizational, and global transformation—a
transformation they realized must begin with themselves.

Our research indicated that to make that transformation from
entrepreneurial founder to successful leader depended on leading
more like a monk, an architect, and a diplomat. As monks, these
social entrepreneurs become more mindful of their leadership role
in the company and their impact on people; as architects, they
spend most of their time on the immeasurable process known as
company culture; and as diplomats, they become expert collaborators
inside and outside of their organizations. Let’s look more
closely at these three transitions critical to leading for scale.

BE A MONK, NOT A FATHER

Monks invite you to become spiritually engaged in your work.
They do this by subtly modeling the values they want to impart.
They listen carefully, never direct you paternalistically, and always
strive to help you find your way.

Successful social entrepreneurs recognize that their primary role is
to turn the organization’s mission and values into practice. Like monks,
they know that everything they say and do—and don’t say or do—sends signals through the company about what values are important.

So be mindful of your powerful effect on people in your organization.
No matter what the formal company documents say, you make
values visible. If respect for others is an important company value,
what do you do when you, the CEO, walk into an office where two
co-workers are engaged in a business conversation? Do you interrupt
them because you and your agenda are more important, or do you
wait your turn until they are finished? Gun
Denhart, cofounder and former CEO of children’s
clothing company Hanna Andersson,
responded by saying: “I wait until they’re finished.
If it goes on, I’ll leave and come back.
I don’t break in and interrupt their work.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen that rudeness too
often from ‘important people.’”

Don’t feel you need to know everything.
If you did, there’d be no room for anyone
else to contribute. Admit to “not knowing,”
even as you help others develop their competence. This creates an atmosphere of honesty and transparency,
where employees share information and responsibility, accept
doubt, and expect help in finding sustainable solutions to business
challenges.

Another way to lead like a monk is to incorporate spirit into your
work. At RSF Social Finance, a San Francisco-based socially responsible
financial services organization, when monthly financial statements
are sent to investor clients, each client’s company
representative personally initials each page of the statement. In
these moments, they are mindful of their client’s situation and of
communicating that attention simply. Over the last 60 years, that
one practice has received more positive response from investors
than any other of the bank’s client services.

Entrepreneurs can extend that mindfulness beyond traditional
company boundaries, too. One CEO, for example, after recognizing
how her seasonal business affected the working hours of her distributors’
employees, shared her market research with her distributors
so they could better predict work cycles and not increase
seasonal employee stress.

BE AN ARCHITECT, NOT A CAPTAIN

“Who’s really the head of a ship?” a CEO once asked me. He answered
by saying: “It’s not the captain. It’s the designer. The captain manages
through the design. Don’t dazzle everyone with your performance.
Ask yourself how you can build the team.”

Too often, social entrepreneurs never make what is likely the
most difficult transition of them all: moving from addressing a
social cause personally to creating a social enterprise to address
that cause. The reason? They took their company culture for
granted, interviewees said. That culture is the foundation of organizational
effectiveness.

On the day he sold the company, Jay Coen Gilbert, cofounder
and former CEO of AND 1, a basketball footwear and apparel company,
told me: “Never underestimate the things you can’t count.
The most important thing you have at your company is your culture;
through it you engage your values, build commitment, and
inspire action.” AND 1’s founders had lost control of the company
culture. Intoxicated with their recent rapid growth, an aggressive
internally competitive culture developed that eroded AND 1’s
employee relationships. The founders couldn’t imbue new hires
with their foundational collaborative culture in time.

Becoming the architect of a leadership-distributive culture—a
culture of shared leadership—is challenging. Founders typically try
to control everything. But they must find a way to let go of control
while remaining involved. If they don’t, they minimize the opportunity
for others to grow into leadership roles. Not only does growth
make this less possible, but it also makes good people leave and others
never graduate into leadership roles.

Before its sale to FedEx, for example, copy giant Kinko’s consisted
of 128 separately owned corporations under the umbrella of
Kinko’s Service Corp., each with its own leadership team. Each team
was responsible for its operating results and strategy consistent with
corporate values and goals. A state-of-the-art voice mail system
complemented training; the 128 teams of 23,000 co-workers could
share leadership strategies and tactics at any hour of the day.

Kinko’s CEO and founder Paul Orfalea put a premium on personal
growth. The service corporation offered many services company-
wide, including monthly professional development through
Kinko’s University. Programming at all Kinko’s educational retreats
ended at 3 p.m. each day to allow time for personal balance. Orfalea
explained his job as helping people develop their intellectual competencies
and become more compassionate and balanced human
beings: “If I take care of our co-workers, they take care of the product,
the product serves the customer, and that takes care of the profit.”

Successful social entrepreneurs have redefined corporate
growth as this less measurable process, their people’s personal
growth. As one CEO put it: “We have changed our measure of success
away from continual material growth, to internal growth. We
can create both more personal and social change by deepening our
relationships. We are growing consciousness and relationships—all
the things that make life interesting—in a way that is sustainable
and enjoyable for everyone.”

BE A DIPLOMAT, NOT A DICTATOR

The finding we found most surprising during our research was the
extent to which successful social entrepreneurs collaborate. They
consider themselves compassionate diplomats and create collaborations
that defy traditional boundaries, so they can share their
business advantages with other companies. Sometimes they even
give their advantages away to competitors.

Judy Wicks, founder and former CEO of Philadelphia’s White
Dog Cafe, focuses on her brand’s success and on creating an industry
model for social change. “Our relationship with people, animals,
and nature is more important than dollars,” Wicks proclaimed.
“That’s why I’m happy not only to give my advantage away to my
competitors, but I’ll even educate them.”

Wicks was referring to her cruelty-free menu. When she discovered
that the factory farm system treated pigs inhumanely, she
took pork off the menu. She then found a local farmer who raised
free-range pigs. She not only purchased pork from his farm, but
also lent him $30,000 for a larger refrigerated truck so that he
could deliver to other restaurants in the city. Wicks went on to
provide consulting for other restaurants interested in buying from
local farmers, leading to an increased demand for humanely raised
local pork and other healthful farm products as competitors followed
her example. She then helped increase the supply of pork by
raising $40,000 to help four more local pig farmers switch to freerange
practices. The press, politicians, consumers, and other business
leaders commended Wicks publicly, and more customers
flocked to her restaurant.

Wicks concluded: “How can my business be based on the suffering
of other creatures? Constant growth for increased profits is
destroying life. We must build an economy based on compassion
for all of life.”

Social entrepreneurs are as passionate about their work as anyone.
Yet leadership is an act of liberation, not of control, and it
starts with unleashing your passion and finding your way. Paradoxically,
this will happen only when you help others reach their
full potential and uncover their passions—when you inspire them
to dream more, do more, and be more.

Mark Albionis a
former Harvard Business
School professor who cofounded
six organizations,
including Net Impact,
and was the first social
entrepreneur to receive
the distinguished entrepreneur
of the year award,
presented at Indiana
University, in 2010. This
article is based on his
book True to Yourself: Leading
a Values-Based Business.

COMMENTS

Nice work Mark and an interesting study. The M.A.D. model for leadership in the social sector. Makes sense, really. It helps to be mad about the existing state of affairs; it helps to be a bit mad to keep going some days, and it helps to use Albion’s MAD model to build an organization that will prosper.

A fantastic piece. Brings a fresh perspective and useful model for organisational transformation and leadership transition. ‘Leadership is an act of liberation, not of control’... how profoundly true! Wish every social enterpreneur in this part of the world could learn and apply the simple nuggets contained here. Will surely use and pass this piece on to my colleagues.

Great article! For founders or leaders who are passing on the baton but still want to support the mission/vision, I might add “be a sherpa, not a ranger”—-it can be challenging knowing how to plug in a wealth of experience, but in an organizational setting, I have found that taking on the role of supporting current leadership is more productive and empowering. And makes you more of an asset to the cause.

I’m curious as to how many out of the 75 members sold out to a larger enterprise? It seems that there has to be some cap on how large an organization can grow and still maintain its core values. I like the ideas stated in this article and wonder how they would apply to a company that continued to grow to a large organization, such as Wal-mart or even applied to a government.

I can appreciate the value of leadership styles identified in the article. Social entrepreneurs, like traditional entrepreneurs, are driven by a sense of mission or opportunity, innovative and resourceful. However, these qualities don’t necessarily imply strong leadership, especially the kind required to grow an organization. Perhaps the key is for social entrepreneurs to recognize they can make an even more significant impact for their chosen cause if they can learn and practice the leadership capabilities described in this article.

This an excellent article. I must thank you for posting this because the article has made me think about my current status wiz my small business and has helped me to realize where the problem lies.

The problem exists when there is limitation wrt to availability of resources. Initially the entrepreneur performs the role of an architect and a captain. If he is not a good captain there is a possibility that his ship might sink because of his inability to find a good captain due to limited resources he has.

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